An effective Messenger Marketing strategy requires collecting OptIns from your customers. Opting-In is easy—as easy a click or two. It’s so easy that customers may not be sure what they had done to receive your messages.
The challenge is collecting OptIns without confusing your customers. First, you want to be transparent about how you are able to reach them on this new channel.
At F8, Facebook announced their company’s heightened focus on privacy and creating a good experience for their users. But, they also oozed confidence why Messenger is the future of business. Businesses should do their part to make the Messenger channel feel like a natural place to interact. In return, customers will continue their relationship with your brand.
Brands using ShopMessage’s Immediate OptIn Confirmation Messages are able to provide immediate feedback based on their engagements. This goodwill, in turn, lays the foundations for a customer to build a lasting relationship with your brand.
Wait, What’s an OptIn?
To communicate with your visitors via Messenger, you need to to get their permission first. An OptIn is how Facebook verifies who has permission to message whom. It’s the password that allows your business to proactively engage with your customers in Messenger.
Collecting Messenger OptIns is 2019’s equivalent of collecting emails 20 years ago. Businesses that invest in their list-building now will make Facebook Messenger their next big revenue-driving channel.
What’s the Immediate Confirmation Message?
Immediate OptIn Confirmation messages are a sweet feature upgrade for ShopMessage’s Growth Plugins. Businesses on Facebook are already using Growth Plugins to build Messenger subscriber lists.
It’s essentially a message that sends immediately after the Messenger OptIn event occurs. We’re not talking about days, hours or minutes here. We’re talking about messages that customers receive seconds after they engage with your brand.
Growth plugins were previously optimized around using the plugin to enter a customer into a messaging flow.
The problem was that flows don’t respond immediately. There is a time delay between the OptIn event and the receipt of the message. As a result, there will be a lag between the time that a Messenger OptIn event happens. This delay of even a few minutes can be enough time for a customer to lose interest.
This delay between action and reaction is not new. Even now, customers signing up via email address experience this problem.
With the Immediate OptIn Confirmation, businesses can set up a message that will send immediately. Then, seconds after the Messenger OptIn event occurs, your customer will receive a message from your business page in Messenger.
As a result, this creates a much better customer experience. You can build customer trust in this new channel by delivering the confirmation message immediately.
Since your customers are actively engaging with your brand, they are at peak receptivity to messages, despite the novelty of the channel. Customers receiving this external feedback that opting-in to messages with your brand was the right thing to do.
This micro-interaction with your business primes your customers to view your brand more positively. Furthermore, you can sweeten the experience by adding the delivery of a dynamic discount code. When you do this, you start your customers’ journey with your brand off on the right foot.
How To Use Immediate OptIn Confirmation Messaging Effectively
In order to be effective, you need to be in the shoes of your customer. An effective immediate OptIn confirmation is timely and relevant. Thus, it doesn’t distract your visitor from the thing you want them to continue doing.
Your customer will be able to trigger an immediate message one of several ways.
Visiting an M.Me Link from somewhere else on the internet
Clicking a send-to-messenger button on an onsite Growth Plugin.
Signing up for order updates — coming soon!
When this happens, a message will greet them. In order to be effective, the immediate message will be tailored around the context of the customer experience leading up to the OptIn event.
Visitors from an M.Me link may need additional context about what they gain from chatting with your business on Messenger. You can ask your visitors questions. You can then use their responses to tailor a more relevant landing page experience for them before moving them down your funnel.
People who click an onsite growth plugin will benefit from only receiving a brief confirmation message. You don’t want to pull their attention away from their onsite experience.
Mobile visitors may see your message as a push notification at the top of their phone as they are browsing. This is a great way to confirm receipt of the dynamic discount code in their inbox, without taking them off your site.
The most effective immediate OptIn confirmation messages treat Messenger as a companion experience. These messages support another interaction your customer is already having with your brand.
M.Me Links (a.k.a M-Me Links, Messenger Links, M-Dot-Me Links, Mmmmm links) are an essential component of your conversational marketing strategy for two reasons.
First, Facebook Messenger stands to be THE revenue channel of 2019 for businesses on Facebook. You may have an email list already, but do you get 80% open-rates and 25% CTRs on your emails?
M.Me links allow you to migrate your users over to a more engaging and effective conversation channel with your customers.
Second, ShopMessage combines the versatility of a hyperlink, the efficiency of automated user flows, and the authenticity of a conversational interface. This triple-threat marketing tool helps you collect all the info you need while building an ongoing relationship with your Messenger contacts.
This new functionality enables businesses to create a scalable concierge-style experience for customers discovering their Facebook Messenger chat from across the internet.
M.Me Links take visitors from around the web to your Facebook Page’s Messenger channel.
What are M.Me Links?
In 2016, Facebook announced M.Me Links. These are a native feature that allows businesses to spread links around the internet for potential customers to discover. When clicked, these links open up a Messenger conversation with your Facebook business page.
Facebook created usernames for your Facebook pages which make it easier to find your business on Facebook. We set “shopmessage” as our custom identifier. When you click https://www.facebook.com/shopmessage, you’re taken to the Facebook page for ShopMessage.
You business page’s M.Me links also use these identifiers. When you click https://www.m.me/shopmessage, you’re taken to a Messenger chat conversation with our business page.
When you arrive in this conversation, one of two things will happen:
Visitors who do not have an existing conversation with our Facebook page on Messenger will see a “Get Started” button. When a user clicks this button, they are saying to Facebook “Yes, let me talk with this business. Let this business to talk to me.” Clicking the button will display the Messenger thread.
If you have already had an existing Messenger thread with our business, then you will see our history together.
Why You Should Care About These Links Now
Although Facebook has honored custom ref params on M.Me links since the feature has been available, you couldn’t use them for much more than tracking traffic.
Don’t get me wrong, tracking traffic is important. In fact, ShopMessage lets you track link clicks and revenue associated with customers earned through each of your M.Me links so you can drill down into the traffic sources that are working for you.
But what if you don’t want the customer journey to stop there?
Now you can continue the conversation with the people clicking through to your brand. You’ll be able to customize a unique set of responses for users that click M.Me links made in ShopMessage. You will also have data tracking the clicks and sales driven by your custom M.Me links.
This is the first significant improvement in your customers’ experiences with M.Me Links since 2016. Now visitors can receive an immediate response from your brand that speaks to where your customers are coming from.
They won’t have to type in anything and wait for a human to respond. Your chat experience will be more engaging because it says the right thing to your visitor as soon as they arrive.
Oh, and we made it so you can make your custom ref param any string of text you want. Remembering and sharing links should be easy.
How Your Customers Benefit From Better M.Me Chat Experiences
The key change here is context.
Now, you can craft intelligent, thoughtful responses that acknowledge the preceding context of your customer’s journey. Rather than staffing someone behind the chat, your responses will be ready to deploy whenever a visitor appears through your link.
Your customers won’t experience the confusion of getting excited about your brand, clicking the link, and not having any kind of follow-up to push them through to the next step of your marketing funnel.
Merchants using ShopMessage can use M.Me Links to create a conversational experience. These messages greet visitors coming from different traffic sources across the web in a contextually relevant way. A few words go a long way in easing the transition into a Messenger conversation with your brand.
You can tailor your custom ref parameters to different incoming customer experiences.
3 Examples of Possible M.Me Customer Experiences
1 A user clicks a link in your email newsletter, blog or twitter feed and receives a dynamic discount code. It’s a great way to thank them for their readership.
2 A visitor sees an ad on Instagram with a link to learn more about your products and services. Clickers are taken to a Messenger chat thread that asks them some easy quick-reply questions. These can help identify where in the purchasing cycle they are or what their preferences are. Then you can send them a link to the most appropriate landing page.
3 A customer receives their item. The packing slip has a QR code on it. When scanned, it sends them an animated gif in Messenger that thanks them for being a loyal customer.
There is no limit to how many M.Me Link parameters you set up. Just make sure that each parameter is unique to your page.
How to Get Started Using Conversational M.Me Links
ShopMessage merchants can create conversational M.Me Links like they would other growth plugins. Select M.Me from the list of Growth Plugin types in the Growth Plugin creation flow.
M.Me Links are a type of Growth Plugin. This is because they help businesses grow their relationship with more customers in Messenger. Using M.Me Links made through ShopMessage is a win-win. They create a great experience for your customers while growing your brand’s list of Messenger contacts along the way.
Contacts created through your M.Me growth plugins will qualify for other Messenger Marketing flows you have set up in ShopMessage. This includes customer retargeting flows like cart abandonment and browse abandonment. Instead of just creating a chat, you’re creating a future relationship with these visitors.
Lastly, M.Me Links work across the internet wherever links are shared. Here are a few ideas to help you get started.
7 Strategies to Grow Your Messenger List with M.Me Links
1. Migrate Your E-Mail List to Messenger
Distribute in your emails and email signatures and convert those email subscribers into more engaged Messenger subscribers. Email has served us well for years, but you want to make sure that you are able to reach your customers wherever they happen to be. Using your email list to turbocharge the growth of your Messenger list is a great way to increase your ability to reach customers who may not always check their email.
2. Re-Engage Your Social Media Followers
Share them in social media posts. Name me a social media platform that doesn’t give you the way to share links? Tweet your links, drop them in a Facebook post description, pair with a Pinterest infographic pin, and even your Instagram swipe-up links! Tailor the next step of the acquisition funnel to reference the preceding step’s contextual content.
3. Leverage Influencer Reach on YouTube and Instagram
Sponsor a YouTuber / Influencer and have them stick the link in their video descriptions or bio. Drill down deeper with partnerships with your existing network of ambassadors. Create a mutually beneficial experience for your two audiences by making the experience super personal and enriching for the audience, with detailed conversation metrics at every step of the way.
4. Embed Links in Your Digital Marketing Content
Insert a Messenger CTA link in your digital marketing content. Longtail contacts will still receive the same appropriate messaging whether they find you immediately, or 5 months down the road. Imagine your e-book getting passed around and having the tracking to see all the new customers being driven by that document.
5. Print Dynamic QR Codes on Branded Materials
Put it in a QR Code and print it on your packaging materials. It’s a great way to remind customers that there’s more you can offer them. Imagine a code on your boxes or bags that can be scanned to hook your customers up with a Free Shipping discount. Print limited edition promo QR code shirts for your ambassadors to wear IRL for some guerilla marketing at high-traffic events like Coachella or South by Southwest.
6. Set-up an M.Me Link in your Footers
Have your M.Me link available as a contact channel on your website. It’s a nice alternative if you don’t have a dedicated customer support agent. When visitors have questions or demand to speak to the manager, you can send them here. An M.Me Link designed to handle inquiries and FAQs can be a great way to get people the answers they need without bombarding your customer support channels.
7. Text it!
Daily Messenger volume now exceeds peak SMS volume. Texting a link is a great way to convert your SMS subscribers into Messenger contacts. Conversations happening over Messenger are less disruptive to your customers. Become more accessible via Messenger with additional signals to reach your customers on Facebook
First, let’s cover what flows are and what they do, and it’ll be clear how these can drive more value for your brand.
ShopMessage Flows are messages that are automatically sent to a customer based on a specific action they take while shopping on your website.
Flows are effective because they are timely, contextually relevant messages based on a customer’s specific shopping experience.
ShopMessage Flows are timely because they respond when customer actions are detected. They are contextually relevant because they pull on data from your customer’s behavior on your site to serve relevant content.
We hate to brag, but we can objectively say that ShopMessage flows are the most flexible and powerful in the industry for e-commerce companies. (Okay, in this case, we love to brag 🙂 What makes them so effective? Glad you asked!
Three Primary Reasons That Messenger Flows Are So Effective
1. ShopMessage flows are designed for all aspects of the customer lifecycle, from welcoming a first-time visitor to engaging a long-time loyal customer. That means you can segment and automatically reach the right customer at the right time in their journey.
There are many touch points along the customer journey for brands to engage via Messenger.
2. ShopMessage flows support custom events so you can trigger messages based on any activity that your customers engage in. With ShopMessage there are no limits for when and how you automatically trigger a message to a shopper.
3. ShopMessage supports custom data so you can send the right message with the right context. For example, you can send a different coupon based on high or low cart values. Or, if a user adds a subscription box to their cart, you may want to send a special flow containing popular items from previous boxes.
While a flow can be set up to trigger on any event, we recommend that brands start by setting up these five flows. They’ve proven to drive revenue, engagement, and long term customer loyalty.
An abandoned cart flow is triggered when — you guessed it! — a customer abandons their cart. The flow is similar to its email-based cousin but is even more effective (most of us ignore our email inbox, while we live in Messenger). ShopMessage abandoned cart flows see over 80% open rates, 35% click rates, and on average drive $9 per recipient messaged.
Listen as Abandoned Cart flows are discussed by Arjun Ohri and the team at Facebook Blueprint.
Order confirmation flows are a polite way to stay in touch and keep your customers updated.
2. Customer Thank You & Order Confirmation Flows
The simple gesture of saying “thank you” goes a long way to establishing long term loyalty with your customers. Thank you flows are message sequences that are triggered and sent after a purchase is completed. A thank you message can automatically include the purchase details, which doubles as a convenient order confirmation. Many brands choose to offer a time-bound discount on a follow-up purchase, which is an effective way to increase average customer value.
Browse Abandonment Flows remind customers what they were browsing earlier.
3. Browse Abandonment Flows
Ah, the art and science of converting browsers to buyers. Sending a Messenger flow to a customer about items they recently viewed can be an extremely effective tactic to close the sale. Browse abandonment flows are set up to trigger when a customer browses a particular product or section but leaves without completing a purchase. The flow is compelling to customers (after all, they were just shopping for that sweet new jacket). Brands can optionally choose to include discounts or other incentives to increase sale conversions.
Customer Win Back Flows are a great way to tell them about all the cool stuff they’ve been missing out on lately.
4. Customer Win Backs
If you are wanting to win people over again, this flow is for you. Customer win backs are directed to customers who have previously purchased from you but have lapsed since their last purchase. The purpose of this flow is to build up brand loyalty and help people remember why they love your brand.
Product Discovery Flows help customers whittle down a wide catalog into the most relevant products for them based on their choices in the conversation.
5. Product Discovery Flow
One of the best parts about shopping in a physical brick and mortar store is there are employees on staff to help you find exactly what you’re looking for. They’ll ask you questions and suggest products based on your responses and taste. That’s where ShopMessage product discovery flows come in. The product discovery is a chatbot that helps the customer browse your catalog and discover the most relevant products.
Welcome Flows get your relationship with your customers off on the right foot from the first time they visit your store.
6. Welcome Flow
So someone just signed up to join your Messenger list. Welcome them to the crew by automatically triggering a conversation. You can choose to send a discount code or simply ask them some questions to better get to know your customers — data you can later use to send personalized campaigns.
These flows are just a taste of how brands can make Messenger THE revenue-driving channel of 2019. The important thing is to have a well-rounded messenger marketing playbook to have better quality conversations with your customers.
You’re a savvy e-commerce marketer and you’ve realized the tremendous value of Messenger Marketing. Nicely done! You may have even experienced first hand the fact that a Messenger subscriber drives 4-5x more revenue than an email subscriber, on average.
Now the only question is how to build your Messenger subscriber list to capitalize on the opportunity. We’ve got you covered.
We wrote this guide to provide an overview of methods to opt-in Messenger Subscribers because having a strong contact list is essential to your success.
We also hope to inspire some specific tactics that you can employ to quickly grow your Messenger list.
Why Subscribers Are Key to Messenger Marketing
First things first. Opting into Messenger is one-click simple for your customers. That’s why ShopMessage customers have an average 8% Messenger opt-in rate. That’s 2-3x higher than average email opt-in rates. Very cool.
Contents
We recommend three ways to build your Messenger Subscriber List. We’ll dive into each.
How to Automatically Capture Subscribers as they Shop Your Store
We can objectively say that ShopMessage has the industry’s most effective (and feature-rich) native growth tools for Messenger. And they’re included free with your ShopMessage account.
Why are they so effective? For three main reasons:
1. Smart Detection to Optimize Shopper Experience.
ShopMessage Growth Plugins optimizes for customer experience by only appearing to users who are already logged into Facebook. Then opting-in is one-click simple.
Plus, our Growth Tools never conflict with any other email capture tools thanks to built-in automatic detection, ensuring your customers are never inundated in popup hell.
2. Beautiful, Customizable Designs to Match Your Brand.
For online retailers, brand matters. That’s why we offer dozens of beautifully designed templates, all of which are completely customizable.
3. Control Exactly Where and How Popups Appear.
ShopMessage Growth Tools are flexible enough to only appear when shoppers go to specific pages or take specific actions.
Our Growth Plugins can appear as a full page takeover, a subtle nudge in the corner of a screen, and everything in between.
And they can be set to appear when a shopper browses a specific product, when they check out when they’re about to navigate away, or any time and place you set.
Now let’s talk tactics.
ShopMessage’s Growth Plugins let you prompt visitors at key points in their customer journey. Here are some of the most common strategies.
You can easily mix and match strategies depending on your brand, customers, and whether or not you’re running existing email capture modals.
ShopMessage growth tools prompt your visitors at key points in their journey.
1.The Arrival Promo
Maximize your impressions by presenting all eligible visitors (meaning visitors who are logged into Facebook) with an offer moments after arriving at your store. You can set this to display immediately upon arrival, although we would recommend a few seconds of delay, so your promotion benefits from the added surprise and delight of a well-timed offer.
2.The Purchase-Intent Promo
Use this strategy to strike a balance between your customer’s ability to browse the site and maximizing your opt-in rate. Purchase-Intent is defined as viewing the page for X-seconds, scrolling down Y% of the page, or adding an item to their cart. You can customize the timing and percentage delays based on your typical customer’s behavior.
3. The Exit-Intent Promo
Wait to display your promotion until your customer appears to be navigating away from your store. Catching them on their way out could mean the difference between an abandoned cart and closing the sale.
4. The Persistent Promo
This is a subtle, yet visible way to build your Contact list that doesn’t take up a lot of space. This hybrid promotion renders as a pill in the bottom corner of your page until triggered. Pills can be triggered by customer behavior or an expiring time-delay. When this happens, the pill will expand into a modal, a flyout, or a full page takeover depending on what design you chose.
5. The Post-Purchase Promo
This strategy is different because it targets the customer after they have completed their purchase. Use this to ensure opt-in collection by celebrating your customer with an offer they can save for their next visit. This strategy lays the foundation for building a repeat customer while they are still feeling the joy of their purchase.
Are you ready to get started? Start your free trial today and have your first opt-in module live in 5 minutes.
Chapter 2: Use ShopMessage with Popular Email Popup Tools
ShopMessage partners with the leading popup providers including Privy and JustUno to make it easy for customers to collect Messenger subscribers alongside email subscribers.
ShopMessage works hand-in-hand with all your favorite email popup tools.
If you’re like most eCommerce companies, you’ve been building your email list since day one so these strategies are old hat.
Adding Facebook Messenger opt-in buttons to existing email opt-in popups takes just a couple steps.
Instructions vary slightly depending on the provider so check out our help center or contact ShopMessage support if we can assist.
The advantage of integrating with your existing email capture tools is you can manage a single, unified opt-in experience and strive to capture both email and Messenger opt-ins at the same time.
Our partner’s popups work in addition to native ShopMessage tools (Chapter 1). ShopMessage popups are programmed to never compete on a page with an existing partner’s popup.
Chapter 3: Use the Reach of Facebook to Grow Your Messenger List
Building a Messenger Subscriber list doesn’t end there. Conceptually, anytime you engage a customer in a Messenger conversation they can opt-in to future Messenger communication. So what are some ways you can start a Messenger chat?
Here’s our shortlist:
Run Click-to-Messenger ads on Facebook to drive list growth.
Run Click-to-Messenger ads on Facebook.
Facebook makes it simple to launch an ad that directs people to a Messenger conversation instead of a website.
The downside, of course, is you have to pay for the ad placement to acquire more contacts.
But the upside is that the ad format offers a compelling way to interact with a potential buyer.
MVMT Watches, for example, used Click-to-Messenger ads to take shoppers to an interactive product guide on Messenger (and powered by ShopMessage).
Share m.me short links to send people directly into a Messenger conversation and grow your subscriber list.
Share m.me short links to send people directly into a Messenger conversation.
You can link to a specific Messenger message using an m.me short link. This can be especially effective if you’re running a giveaway or other promotion that encourages users to opt in.
Plus, you can share M Me links anywhere that hyperlinks are accepted.
For example, you can share the link over email to your most engaged customers. Or share it with your followers on a social media post.
The key tactic is to use your existing traffic from other channels to jumpstart building your subscriber list on Messenger.
Use comment capture on Facebook posts to open chats with people already engaging with your brand and convert them into contacts.
Use comment capture on Facebook posts to turn viral content into conversations.
You’ve probably seen Facebook posts encouraging you to comment. You can use Facebook’s private replies API to automatically send a Messenger message to anyone who comments on your post.
This then gives you the opportunity to engage them in a Messenger conversation.
Start Conversations with the Customer Chat Plugin.
You can start conversations directly from your website with the Messenger Chat plugin.
It’s a lot like other onsite chat plugins you’ve seen and interacted with, but since it’s powered by Facebook Messenger, you can continue the conversation even after the shopper leaves your site.
Plus, everyone that engages with you in chat can choose to opt-into future messaging.
Bottom Line
Messenger subscribers are extremely valuable for e-commerce brands. There are many tactics you can employ to start building your list.
